Did my first skype presentation the other day and while it will never replace being there in person, it went very well indeed, and is definitely something most authors should consider offering. I had read some advice on skype visits that included look into the camera, not at your screen, to maximixe effectiveness. I had […]

When I was a kid there was a skipping game we played. It had a rhyme that went: Vote, vote vote for little ….(insert name) ie. Suzie Who’s that knocking at the door? Well if it’s ….(insert name) ie. Mary Let her in and we’ll sock her in the chin And we won’t vote for […]

It seems to me that in writing this sequel for Wanting Mor, I’ve either done something extremely clever, or extremely dumb. I’m not sure which yet. I was leaning towards the latter (dumb) but after reading a few reviews of Wanting Mor on goodreads.com, I’m wondering if what I did wasn’t brilliant. Despite the fact […]

You know that feeling when you get something you weren’t sure you could accomplish, done, and on time for a deadline? Well, I’ve been basking in that feeling all day. Finished my second screenplay for that animated series and the problem was I’d waited too long between the two to do them. This second episode […]

There is an inferiority complex operating in Canada. I’m sure people from other ethnicities experience it too. I remember in Singapore, talking to some very passionate people about children’s books, who’d turned to self-publishing because their books were considered too ‘regional’ to make it in a North American market (and if you want to be […]

This is the third post of my Hajj journal. I’ve tried to inscribe it exactly as I wrote it. Any current thoughts are in parantheses. Nov. 7 – 10, 2010 We arrived in Medina after a gruelling journey. When I came for umrah with my parents two years ago, going from Mecca to Medina was a quick […]

All this talk about bullying has me thinking. At first I thought I’d write a book, a non-fiction book, kind of a how-to guide for all those geeky nerdy bullied kids that remind me of myself when I was growing up. But then I thought what kid would pick up a book like that? It would […]

I went up to Ottawa on Monday. It was another beautiful fall day. Did I mention that fall is my favourite season? And yet it was bittersweet. So many memories! There’s a picture in our old family albums of me and my sisters and brother, at the picnic area on the shores of Silver Lake. I […]

It’s Thanksgiving weekend in Canada and a fall tradition with my family has always been to go on the studio tour up in the Haliburton Highlands. It’s a region of middle Ontario that is known for it’s spectacular fall colours and protuding bits of the Canadian shield. (I can’t even say it’s in Northern Ontario because it’s only […]

Today I did a presentation at Seneca College, Newnham campus, to a group of students in a children’s literature class. That wouldn’t be very significant except that in 1980-1982 around, I went to Seneca College, at that same campus, to study what I thought would be my life’s career: biological chemical technology. To say that […]